This article develops the Digital Opportunity Structures Framework (DOSF) to explain cryptocurrency fraud. Integrating opportunity theory, routine activity theory, and space transition theory, DOSF specifies how opportunity density, guardianship fragmentation, offender mobility, and target susceptibility interact within decentralized financial ecosystems. Cryptocurrency fraud is conceptualized as a dynamic process in which dense opportunities become more criminogenic when guardianship is fragmented, fragmented guardianship becomes more exploitable when offenders possess high mobility, and target susceptibility is environmentally amplified by information asymmetry and speculative conditions. Four empirically testable propositions distinguish DOSF’s predictions from component theories. The article contributes to criminological theory and provides a basis for targeted prevention strategies in emerging financial technologies.
The monetization of the gaming industry has included mechanisms that allow monetary transactions for virtual items or gaming progression. This pilot research aims to collect public perception of the similarities between gambling and various commonly seen gaming monetization mechanisms through online surveys. Across the examined traditional gambling definitional elements, findings show that having the means to convert in-game items into real money relates to participants considering the game to be gambling, yet not the other two elements of needing money to play or chance. The findings also show great variability across the mechanisms examined. These results show the potential limitations of applying traditional legal definitions to newly emerged activities.
Cryptocurrency is a digital currency that is decentralized from financial institutions and can be used for financial transactions among individuals, which due to its decentralized nature, has been viewed by some in the financial sector as the “wild west.” It can be used in financial transactions, investments, and criminal/illegal activities. As cryptocurrency has become more mainstream, it has infiltrated popular media and become a focal point of social media posts. Since 2016, presidential candidates such as Andrew Yang, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Donald Trump have embraced cryptocurrency to varying degrees. While other nation-states have begun to implement regulations on the cryptocurrency industry, the United States is largely undecided on regulations. This study examines American public opinion sentiments using a nationally representative sample on the readiness of both cryptocurrency investors and noninvestors for the cryptocurrency industry to be regulated. The findings suggest that potential crypto regulations receive mixed support among both noncrypto owners and crypto owners. This research finds differing opinions on cryptocurrency regulations among those knowledgeable about cryptocurrency and those who have engaged in the cryptocurrency market. The study provides policy implications for cryptocurrency regulations in the United States.
The proliferation of cryptocurrency has produced a growing population of digitally immersed consumers whose online activities and expenditures remain poorly understood in relation to crime and deviance. Using an online survey of 921 U.S. cryptocurrency users recruited nationwide, the present study examines whether various online experiences (i.e., social media use, scam exposure, and financial loss) and digital expenditures (i.e., subscription services, video games, sports betting, and pornography) are associated with six self-reported deviant and criminal behaviors, as well as a summed deviancy index. Logistic and negative binomial regression models revealed that spending on online pornography was the most robust and consistent correlate of deviance, significantly predicting every outcome and remaining salient across both sexes. Greater exposure to cryptocurrency-related scams, having lost money on cryptocurrency investments, and lower household incomes were also significantly associated with elevated offending, whereas general social media use and subscription spending were not. Sex-specific analyses indicated that pornography and sports betting predicted deviance among women, while men exhibited a broader risk profile. Findings are interpreted through the generality of deviance, routine activities, and strain perspectives and suggest that specific vice-oriented expenditures, rather than online presence per se, signal heightened behavioral risk.
In November 2025, Karen National Liberation Army forces liberated more than 3,000 workers from 23 countries held inside the Shunda Park compound in Myanmar, exposing an industrial criminal model that confounds foundational criminological assumptions. Southeast Asian scam compounds, generating an estimated 64 billion dollars in annual global revenues, operate through a three-party economic structure in which trafficked laborers are coerced into perpetrating cryptocurrency investment fraud against a global victim pool. This article extends routine activity theory and rational choice theory to account for structurally coerced perpetrators, the labor-control and victim-extraction functions of cryptocurrency infrastructure, and the dual victimhood that defines these operations. Drawing on a mixed-methods analysis of federal indictments, sanctions designations, United Nations (UN) reports, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Internet Crime Complaint Center data, and blockchain analytics, three theoretical propositions are advanced with accompanying policy implications.
